The Camp That Was Never Built: Haunted Boy Scout Lane

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 8, 2026 · How we verify

The story people repeat about the haunted Boy Scout Lane, an unpaved track in the Town of Linwood outside Stevens Point, Wisconsin, is that a troop of Boy Scouts died there and never left. The record says otherwise. The deaths in the legend are fictional, and the name comes from a land purchase and a camp that was never built. What is real is the road itself, the private property signs at either end, and decades of visitors describing lights in the trees.

Boy Scout Lane at a Glance

The lane sits in Portage County, west of the Wisconsin River Golf Club on West River Drive, between Cemetery Road and Little Chicago Road. It is unpaved and runs roughly 2,500 feet, which is not much more than a long driveway. The surrounding land is woodland, it is privately owned, and it is off limits to the general public. That last point is the one most worth carrying with you.

Why the Road Carries a Scouting Name

The explanation is dull in the best possible way. The land near the road was once owned by the Boy Scouts of America, who planned to build a Scout camp on it. The camp was never constructed, the ground stayed woodland, and the name stuck to the road anyway. No tragedy, no bus, no fire. Just a property that did not become what it was bought to become, and a name that outlived the plan.

The Troop That Never Existed

Local legend fills that empty ground with a body count. In the standard version, a troop of Boy Scouts was killed on a camping trip in the 1950s or 1960s. From there the story splinters. Sometimes the killer is the Scoutmaster, sometimes the bus driver. In another telling, a few Scouts slip out of camp at night, drop their lantern, and set a forest fire that consumes the whole troop. Elsewhere the bus crashes, or catches fire, or the Scouts simply vanish and are never found.

One variation deserves attention because it is the engine of the ghost story. In it, two Scouts escape whatever killed the others and go looking for help, only to become lost in the woods and die of starvation or exposure. That detail is what the reported lights are said to be: the two survivors still searching, or the troop still looking for each other. It is a tidy piece of folklore construction, and there is no record of any of it having happened.

Lights, Handprints and Footsteps in the Undergrowth

The phenomena repeated in haunted travel guides and by visitors are consistent enough to list, though none of it is documented in any verifiable way. People describe a strong sense of foreboding or of being watched. They report footsteps and the sound of breaking branches coming from several directions at once. They describe red or white lights that look like swinging lanterns or flashlight beams. Ghostly buses and figures turn up in some accounts. And there are the childlike handprints, said to appear on cars stopped in or driven through the area, which is the detail most often retold and the one most easily produced by dust, condensation and a friend with small hands.

An isolated unpaved road at night, walked by people who already know the story, is a machine for generating exactly these reports. Deer move through undergrowth from multiple directions. Distant headlights and taillights swing between trees. That does not mean nobody experienced anything; it means the setting supplies the raw material. The area has been the subject of several paranormal investigations, and it remains a popular destination for young people hoping for a paranormal event, which is its own kind of feedback loop.

Do Not Go Looking: The Land Is Private

This is the part that matters more than any lantern light. The land surrounding Boy Scout Lane is now privately owned and closed to the general public. There is no tour, no trailhead, no visitor parking, and no sanctioned way to stand on the road after dark. The heavy traffic of thrill seekers is precisely why the owners closed it. Anyone driving out to look should stay on public roads, respect posted signage, and understand that the legend is a legend: the Scouts in the story never existed, and the only real risk out there is a trespassing charge.

Address: Boy Scout Lane, Town of Linwood, Portage County, near Stevens Point, Wisconsin

See Boy Scout Lane for Yourself

Sources

• Do ghostly Boy Scouts haunt rural lane?
• Boy Scout Lane
• In search of a real-life ghost story
• Boy Scout | Scary For Kids
• GeoHack – Boy Scout Lane
• Wikipedia: Boy Scout Lane

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